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Fresh seafood vendors on the Cham island (just a half-hour boat ride from UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site of Hoi An) cook up fresh catches in under five minutes at rock-bottom prices.

“I've never seen a seafood market like the one on Cham island,” first-time visitor Nguyen Thi Lan from Hue said.

“You ask for the price and once you nod your head, the lady picks up a knife and a cutting board and in less than five minutes everything is steaming up at you from your plate,” Lan told news website VietNamNet.

Once on the island, everything becomes shockingly inexpensive.

Visitors take a hike through the jungle for free and seafood is half the mainland price and a quarter of the price at restaurants in large cities.

A tour guide said one dish of mu fish (the groupers species) costs VND300,000 ($14) a kilogram on the island but large restaurants can charge one for VND1.2 million.